includes in-depth things about medicare for all and voter suppression and that time everyone in congress was trying beat each other up. you can find all those episodes wherever you get your podcasts. good evening. thanks for being with us tonight. happy holidays. congressman david dennis is a republican from indiana. he was a former prosecutor for wayne county, indiana. as member of congress, david dennis sat on the house judiciary committee, which at the time probably seemed like a great gig, right? former prosecutor, sitting on one of the more prestigious committees in congress. it was probably an awesome gig until it meant having to decide whether the republican president of the united states should be impeached. republican congressman david dennis was on that committee, and the matter came up, and he took up the challenge. and he took it up with relish. he was not at all shy about his

desire to tell the world what a lot of hooey he thought this whole watergate business was. >> if you start talking about the facts, if you start pleading the facts, you can't much intendment against the president except for taking the worst possible construction on everything that happens. the more you analyze it, the more you're going to find out how weak this case is on the facts. the thing to remember is we're not accusing the president because of his general moral character or whether he is moral or amoral or what his general character or person may be, we've got to find evidence of a high crime or misdemeanor. if we try to impeach him for anything less, then we're not doing our duty. >> time of the gentleman has expired. >> congressman david dennis. he stuck by president nixon

until very nearly the end of he was a passionate advocate for nixon. he was up on of 11 republicans on the judiciary who voted against itch peopling nixon in july of 1974. but then, then the smoking gun tape emerged. it was right after that committee vote where david dennis and ten other republicans voted no on impeachment. and then all of the sudden there was this tape where it's all laid bare, where nixon can be heard explicitly ordering a halt into the fbi's investigation into watergate. once they heard that tape, once everybody heard that tape, there was just no denying it anymore. david dennis and his fellow republicans flipped. they had to. they agreed to vote to impeach the president. and days later on august 9th, nixon resigned from office. but, you know, before that

smoking gun tape had come out, david dennis really had been nixon's guy on the judiciary committee. he had been his constant defender. david dennis spent months on television and in the press defending nixon on capitol hill, talking about how weak the case was against nixon, how there was no evidence, how this was a shame. what happens when you've been shouting nothing's here, nothing's here, nothing's here. it's like the tide goes out and suddenly you get to see whose been swimming naked. in the immediate aftermath of that, in the fall of 1974, so right after nixon resigned, nixon resigned in august. then in november of that same year, just a few weeks later, it's time for the midterms. so everybody in the house had to run for reelection. in david dennis' case he had to head back home to indiana to convince his constituents to send him back to congress. right at the moment he had been proven wrong about what was basically the only thing he had become known for as a congressman. >> dennis is a conservative republican.

he was one of richard nixon's chief defenders until that last condemning tape. then he switched to vote for impeachment. dennis says his voters support what he did and the way he did it. he too feels he was helped politically by television coverage of the impeachment investigation. >> on balance, i think it's been very helpful. for one thing, i have a wide recognition factor thanks to you people on the television. >> dennis doesn't seem worried. besides, he feels the televised impeachment proceedings made him better known to voters than his six years of service in congress. >> so what if i'm famous for being wrong. at least i'm famous. that's got to be good, right? turns out being a famous defender of richard nixon was not a plus in the 1974 midterm elections, which, again, did take place right after nixon had to resign. >> 33 of the 38 members on the judiciary committee ran for reelection. all became highly visible, as we all know during the summer,

during the time that the committee's hearings were televised over the impeachment of the president. of the 33 who ran again, six were considered in tight races. five of those six are republicans. wiley mayne was beaten in iowa's sixth district. charles saman lost in the second district. joseph mariziti, another staunch nixon partisan was easily defeated. in indiana, david dennis, who also opposed impeachment lost to philip sharp. >> in indiana, david dennis lost. david dennis' seat in indiana was one of 48 seats republicans lost the year that nixon resigned from office. including a bunch of other republicans who, like david dennis, had spent their time in congress wholeheartedly defending nixon right up until the very end. so a really, really big loss for the republican party that year, 1974. biggest midterm loss for republicans in modern political

time. since 1974, republicans haven't fallen anywhere near that level of defeat, until now. this year they lost 40 seats in the house to the democrats. it was the biggest midterm loss republicans have seen since that extraordinary election in 1974 that happened right after nixon had to step down. the republican president had just resigned in disgrace. this was their worst performance since then. and of course the republicans' record-setting loss is the democrats' record-setting gain. that was true in 1974, and it's true right now too. one of the things that democrats have been swimming upstream against since 2010 is that it's actually very difficult for them to win seats in congress even when they win more of the vote. that's because ahead of the 2010 midterms, republicans launched a genius nationwide effort to take over key legislatures across the country. they directed national donor funds to seemingly obscure state legislative races that were strategy chosen in order to flip legislators to republican control.

and nobody much cared at the national level, but then those flipped legislators redrew congressional maps for the next decade. after that 2010 election, republicans gerrymandered much of the country in their favor for years to come. so, yes, this year democrats did win a ton of seats in the midterms, 40 seats. but in order to do that, they had to actually get a disproportionately huge chunk of the vote to make up for the way that republicans were able to successfully tilt the playing field against the democrats. the national popular vote in congressional elections is not something we usually talk about, but it is a useful signifier of a party's power and how a party does in an election. for example, this was the cover of "time" magazine, november 1994. g.o.a.t. -- "gop stampede." a special report, very unsubtle. look under the elephant's foot. yeah, crushing the donkey under his big elephant foot. 1994 famously a crushing election year in which republicans made huge, huge gains in congress. the republican revolution, right? the republicans took back the

majority after decades out of power. the newt gingrich ascends to the top leadership spot in the house. you know, if you add up all the votes in that election, that congressional election, more people voted for republicans that year by a big margin, 7.1% points was their margin in the popular vote that year. huge win for them in 1994. same story for the republicans again in 2010. 2010 was another huge win for the republicans, particularly in the house. the big tea party insurgency in response to election of barack obama and the big democratic majorities that went along with his first term win. republicans won back the majority in congress in 2010. and, again, you add up all the votes in that congressional election, more people voted for republicans that year by a margin of 6. points. they almost matched their huge margin in 1994. republicans won the popular vote by a big, big margin, tea party

revolt. and lots more votes, of course, equals lots more seats. that's how things used to go. and now take a look at this year's congressional election results. democrats this year won control of the house. more people voted for democratic candidates than republican candidates in congress by a margin of 8.5 points. previously unheard of. the largest margin of victory one party has ever seen over the other in any midterm election. a bigger margin than either of those two most recent republican revolutions that were so breathlessly talked about afterwards. but this huge margin that democrats won this year, look, it actually got them fewer seats. fewer seats than republicans won with less of the popular vote. democrats did win 40 seats this year, still impressive. still a big victory. but in order to get those 40 seats, democrats had to

absolutely crush republicans in terms of the vote. when you look at numbers, it's striking to see how much better democrats had to do than republicans in order to have power in congress at all. they had to work harder. they had to strategize better. the odds numerically really are stacked against them. even when they win the vote by a ton. well, coming up tonight, we're going to have two interviews with members of the incoming democratic majority in the house, two democratic congresswomen-elect who not only have never been in congress before, they'd never before run for anything, and this year they ran in solidly red districts and they won both of those districts. we've got those interviews coming up in just a moment. but, of course, when congress reconvenes in january, nancy pelosi will be at the helm. she'll be second in line to the presidency. she'll be speaker of the house. she appears quite on track to be elected the speaker despite the beltway network of breathless news reporting suggesting the contrary. in recent weeks, she has solidified her position as the leader of the democrats in the house, the incoming speaker, and as the most powerful democrat in washington.

but she's not it, right? inside the democratic party, there is leadership within the congress, but also inside the democratic party there are four different campaign committees that are dedicated to getting democrats elected to four different kinds of office. one for house candidates, one for senate candidates, one for democratic candidates for governor and one for democratic legislative candidates across the country. as of next year, all four of those campaign committees will be led by democratic women. for the first time in history in either party, all the campaign committees will be female-led. the head of the democratic governor's association is the governor of rhode island, gina raimondo. democrats this year flipped seven governors' houses from red to blue. six governors' races were won by women democrats this year. two of whom won in states that donald trump won in 2016. now gina raimondo has been elected by her fellow democratic governors to help democrats win more governorships next year. in the senate, democrats didn't win back control of the senate this year. but they did flip two states blue, nevada and arizona which means the u.s. senate has gained

two senators. jacky rosen and kyrsten sinema. heading into 2020, the first latino woman ever to lead the democratic senate campaign committee, catherine cortez masto. she'll chair for the 2020 elections. over the last decade, the place where democrats lost the most ground was at the state level. during the obama presidency, democrats lost more than 900 state legislative seats to republicans. winning back those state legislative seats is critical for democrats, both for power and policy in the states, but also if they want to fix the congressional maps that republicans created in 2010, which are now so aggressively drawn in republicans' favor. after donald trump took office in 2017, 2017, democrats flipped 44 state legislative seats in virginia and new jersey, and in special elections across the country. 44 seats flipped red to blue. but then in november this year, democrats flipped 380 more seats red to blue.

than means democrats have already in two years won back nearly half the seats they lost over president obama's time in office. the head of the campaign committee who has overseen the huge wins across the country in the state legislative races, that's the oregon speaker of the house, tina kotek. she was just reelected to lead the democratic legislative campaign committee after what has been fairly stunning success already. and then there is congress. democrats doubling down on what helped them win more seats this year than they have won since nixon resigned. the new head of the democratic congressional campaign committee as of this month is congresswoman cheri bustos of illinois. her first order of business is actually this endless weird ground fight in north carolina's ninth congressional district which turns out to be kind of a crime scene. who could have known that would be the first order of business. but the big picture is a lot to work with here. congress's incoming class is the

most racially diverse, most female freshmen class in congressional history. there are 66 new democratic members of congress. 35 of them are women, many of whom unseated republican incumbents, and some of them did it in very republican districts. cheri bustos of course wants to do more of that. more women in congress, more competing and winning in republican districts. cheri bustos' own district is one that voted for donald trump in 2016. this year congresswoman bustos not only won that same district, she did so by a quite handy landslide. look, she won by 24 points in a trump district. and now cheri bustos will be in charge of guiding democrats through the 2020 campaign, defending the seats they have and trying to broaden their support as the president seeks a second term in office. what will that look like? how do you start preparing now if that is the fight to come? joining us now is congresswoman cheri bustos of illinois, the new chair of the democrats' house campaign committee, the dccc. thanks for being here. >> thank you. >> never had you on the show before. i'm very glad you could do the

show tonight. >> i'm glad i could be here too. >> let me just ask you, first of all, sitting here listening to me tell that story, i thought i'm going to make her break out in some sort of rash or hives by spending this much time talking about impeachment. >> where are you going with this, rachel. >> that's part of the thing that happens on this show. nobody knows where i'm going with it. but the reason i was going with that is not to talk about the electoral prospects for impeachment, but to talk about the scale of the victory that democrats just won. i mean, on the one hand, that gives you this incredible freshman class and a big majority right now in is the house, but it also means that 2020 is going to be hard because you just won a bunch of races in places that it was hard for democrats to win in. how do you see the next two >> as of january 3rd, when we're sworn in, we will have 31

members of house democrats who come from trump districts. so i'm just one of those 31. so we've got to start there and make sure that we can hang on to those. we want to fortify these districts. we don't want to rent them for the next two years. we want to own them. and on top of that, we have 24 democrats who won by five points or fewer, and we have 26 republicans who won by five points or fewer, meaning those are our countries. opportunities. we can look at those 26 seats that republicans barely won and go after those. so what i would say is you look at every district in this country, and we're not going to leave any battlefield district uncontested or unprotected. that will be our goal over the next two years. >> when it comes to playing offense and looking at additional opportunities to unseat republicans who currently hold house seats, i wonder how you think about this thing that we spend so much time jawing over it in this country. i wonder from a tactical perspective how it comes down to

the nuts and bolts job that you've got to do. the trump era in republican politics is very discontinuous with previous eras in republican politics. the president on trade, on fiscal issues, on dare i say like family values issues, on a lot of matters, not to mention all the scandal stuff he is dragging around is a real departure from what a lot of traditional republicans have been able to run on in traditionally republican parts of the country. do you have to try to tactically separate some traditional republicans from trumpism? do you try to create a wedge there? is it already there and you just try to leverage it? >> so in a district like mine that donald trump won, i look at it as there were people who were willing to try donald trump. if you remember that speech he gave fairly late in his campaign where he was saying i think it was to an african american audience, what have you got to lose, i think people in a district like mine where more than 60% of the towns i represent are a thousand people

or fewer and 85% are 5,000 people or fewer. i think they went to the polls. you and i were talking about gaysburg, illinois earlier. i talked about the maytag plant that closed about a decade and a half ago. still all these years later, the wages have not recovered to where they were a decade and a half ago. so i think these people heard him say what have you got to lose and thought i'm just going to try this. this is something different. well, now two years into his presidency in 2020, which we'll look ahead to, four years, he'll be wrapping up his first full term, hopefully his own term, and i think people will say we had a lot to lose actually. and i'm going to -- i'm going to take a look at the democrat, and i'm going to give a try to the democrat. i think that our brand as democrats, we have a lot of work to do over the coming years. in smaller towns in rural america, people, if you have a d by your name, that doesn't always help you. so we got to i think rebuild our brand. this last cycle we showed that we had some of the greatest candidates i've ever had any contact with in my political lifetime. and that made a difference. so we have to continue to recruit those kind of candidates and make sure that we show people in these towns of a thousand people or 5,000 people that we have something good to

offer. >> and that recruiting effort is presumably what you're working on right now? that stuff's got to start right now. right? >> i am now a little more that two weeks into my job, and yes, we're already looking at that. >> congresswoman cheri bustos of illinois, the new chair of the democrats' congressional chair campaign committee. the dcc ended up being so important, but also a source of news over the past couple of years. you've had quite the career.

yeah, i've had some pretty prestigious jobs over the years. news producer, executive transport manager, and a beverage distribution supervisor. now i'm a director at a security software firm. wow, you've been at it a long time. thing is, i like working. what if my retirement plan is i don't want to retire? then let's not create a retirement plan. let's create a plan for what's next. i like that. get a plan that's right for you. td ameritrade. ♪ i am a techie dad.n. i believe the best technology should feel effortless. like magic. at comcast, it's my job to develop, apps and tools that simplify your experience. my name is mike, i'm in product development at comcast. we're working to make things simple, easy and awesome.

2018 was an important anniversary year. as 2018 comes to an end, it will probably be another 50 years before we start talking about how many years it's been since 1968. 50 years ago 1968 was just an unbelievably calamitous year. martin luther king jr. was assassinated in memphis. robert kennedy had just won the california presidential primary. he too was assassinated on the campaign trail. democratic national convention that year was overtaken, basically, by furious anti-vietnam protests. the country was in all sorts of turmoil, politically and otherwise. the morning after the 1968 presidential election felt like

kind of a hangover. richard nixon had won the 1968 presidential election by the slightest of margins in a race that didn't get officially decided until the following day. but there was one ray of sunshine for democrats that year. that day that would end up resonating for a really long time after. it would end up resonating right into this year's elections in 2018. >> for the first time, the house will have a black woman member, shirley chisholm from the sometimes explosive bedford stuyvesant area of brooklyn. >> shirley chisholm was a children's educator from brooklyn. her opponent for congress that year was the somewhat idiosyncratic james farmer. he ran on the liberal party ticket. he got the backing of the

republican party. but on election day it was the democratic candidate, shirley chisholm who beat the odds. he is won her brooklyn district 2-1. it was a historic win. but given everything else going on at the time, getting people to pay attention to the historic nature of shirley chisholm's win, it wasn't easy. it wasn't easy until she arrived in washington, d.c., and then it became quite clear that people were definitely going to know who was shirley chisholm. >> in the 12th congressional district of new york last year, a school teacher named mrs. shirley chisholm was elected to congress. the 12th district is the bedford stuyvesant district of brooklyn, a solid concrete urban slum. last week mrs. chisholm was given her congressional committee assignments by the house leadership. to her utter surprise she was placed on agriculture subcommittees dealing with forestry and rural development. she complained. >> she complained. one of the first thing shirley chisholm did when she got to congress was to complain, was to

speak out against her ridiculous committee assignment, and against the leaders of her party in congress who had given her that assignment. and i know that sounds like a little process thing, no big deal, right? honestly, though, people did not do that, especially as soon as they arrived for the first day in congress. people did what the party leadership told them to do. there wasn't even a process in place to not do that if you wanted to object. but that wasn't the sort of thing that would defer or deter shirley chisholm. >> i was learned that i was going to be placed on the agricultural committee when i went back home over the weekend, the people were surprised. they said shirley, we don't grow hogs in the district and we surely don't have cotton fields. how did you get on that committee? you know? and you know, it's only natural that people are going to elect you to be their representative that they're going to hope that you can function in an area that would help them. >> shirley chisholm's first big national stage moment was doing something nobody did, speaking out against her own party's leadership on that decision. and she won.

she became the first freshman member of congress to have a committee assignment changed by house leadership. and from there on, she just kept going. >> how do you feel being the first black woman in the house of representatives? >> i have mixed feelings. first of all, i'm very glad to have been able to make history in this country by being the first black woman. and boys and girls, as far as i'm concerned, actually, it's overdue. >> there are so many things in the congress i would like to change. i think the thing i'd like to change more than anything else is the seniority system. the destiny of this country, which is primarily a young country, primarily peopled by younger people of a whole is in the hands of about 15 men. 90% of them are from the south. the country is ruled by a group of old men that make up the southern oligarchy. that's why this country is as it is. i see myself as a potential reconciler on the american scene. time will tell whether or not

this will be so. >> from the moment she arrived in washington, d.c., congresswoman shirley chisholm was a force to be reckoned with. her nickname was "fighting shirley." but she also earned the respect of her fellow members of congress. she wept on to cofound the congressional black caucus. she even ran for president. shirley retired after 14 years in congress, she was asked how she'd like to be remembered. she responded that she did not want to go down in history as the nation's first black congresswoman. rather she said, quote, i'd like them to say that shirley chisholm has guts. that's how i'd like to be remembered. that is absolutely how she is remembered. after shirley chisholm's death in 2005, congress commissioned a portrait of her.

that's a honor typically reserved only for party leadership, but fighting shirley is still there in the halls of congress, keeping an eye out. and now over the past few weeks, members of congress' new freshmen class, the most diverse freshmen class congress has ever seen, they've been arriving at the capitol hill, and they've been doing their orientation, and they've been setting up their staffs and their offices. and do you know who keeps popping up these last couple of weeks? yeah. thank god they put up that portrait. because with democrats picking up 40 new seats and sending the washington the most diverse and most female congress ever, the past few weeks have been a time to remember and to honor the fact that shirley chisholm had guts. coming up, we will have interviews with two new congress members-elect. both of whom defied grade odds to get where they are today. their stories are coming up next. stay with us. stay with us

lauren underwood grew up in naperville, illinois. when she was 8 years old, she was diagnosed with a chronic heart condition. it that's what made her want to become a nurse, watching her own caregivers back when she was a little kid. lauren underwood became a nurse. she ended up taking her nursing experience to the obama administration where she worked at the health and human services department, helping implement the affordable care act. back home in illinois, lauren underwood's congressman, republican randy hultgren voted

to repeal the affordable care act, and that's when things started to change in lauren underwood's life. >> good morning, everyone. it's lauren underwood. we are here in naperville. hi! lauren underwood. i want to remind you to vote. i'm lauren underwood. i'm licensed as a nurse. i spent my career working to expand health care in communities across the country. >> i'm lauren underwood. nice to meet you. >> when the 2016 election happened, i was faced with this america on tv that didn't look like anything i knew. being a young millennial women of color is certainly a lot for some people. no one invited us to this table. >> i'm so proud of you. >> no one. and i think that's also what makes it so powerful. >> after the 2016 presidential election with her hometown congressman voting to get rid of the affordable care act, lauren underwood decided she would run for congress. 32 years old, she had never run for anything. she is from the 14th district of illinois which is a solid red

part of the state. it's a trump district. 86% of that district is white. voters there have never sent a person of color to congress. they've never sent a woman either. by all accounts, lauren underwood was a pipe dream to fill that seat held by the republican who had voted to take away her health care, until she wasn't. last night lauren underwood won. she turfed out a four-time republican congressman 20 years her senior in a race that everybody told her she would lose. today the "chicago sun-times," look at that, put her photo on the front page right next to this headline, "house flippers." she is not a dolphin. she is a congresswoman-elect. joining us now is lauren underwood, congresswoman-elect from the 14th district in illinois. congratulations, ms. underwood. thank you so much for being with us. >> thank you, rachel. i'm so honored to be on. >> one of the reasons i wanted to talk to you tonight is because i learned today after you won that you beat six men in the primary to get this spot on the ballot?

>> i did. and in that primary election, we had a field of seven. i got 57% of the vote in that primary, which is pretty unprecedented. and went on to win the general election last night against congressman hultgren. >> what is the secret of your success to winning that primary, to winning in a trump district, to unseating a four-term incumbent? to what do you attribute this? >> well, when we launched this campaign, we had a goal of being everywhere in our district all the time. you see, this is a seat that was formally held by the u.s. speaker of the house, dennis hastert. and a democrat seceded him, bill foster. but it had been a long time since there was real grassroots democratic involvement, training, and an opportunity for a candidate to be able to travel to the rural and suburban parts of the community and really build and mobilize a campaign that could be as successful. and so we said that we were going to go to even the most rural parts of the district, maybe that hadn't been touched by a democrat in ten years. we had farmers tell us that no

democrat had knocked on their door in that time frame. and we showed up and showed up and showed up in those living rooms, in those fields and in those cul-de-sacs to engage our neighbors. >> you were 30 years old when you decided to run for this seat. you're 32 now. you're going to be one of the youngest people elected to congress. and as an african american woman, as a woman of color running in this district, i mean, that itself has to have been such a steep climb. i mentioned in the introduction it's 86% white district. you're running as a first time candidate, as a young woman, as an african american. i want to know whether or not that was daunting for you, whether that was a factor in terms of your confidence and your game plan. >> well, this is my community. it's my home. my family moved to naperville when i was 3 years old. this is a community that taught me to be a black woman in the world.

so i certainly -- it never crossed my mind that i was somehow not a good fit or unqualified to seek this seat and run for this position. and so i stepped forward. and with the help of so many women in our district, we were able to do what many folks had never imagined would be possible. and i'm really proud that our election day was 50 years and one day after shirley chisholm became the first black woman elected to the united states congress, and i will be upon swearing in the youngest black woman to ever serve in the united states congress. >> what are your priorities when you get there? do you have a dream in terms of committees, in terms of legislation to work on? obviously you're getting there as part of a new democratic majority. there is no democratic majority in the senate to work as a partner, but there will be democratic control of those committees, and you're coming in as a bit of a star. >> thank you. i am really focused on health care. it has emerged as the number one issue in the election across my community because premium prices are high, prescription drug prices are high, and so many families across northern illinois are feeling squeezed. as a nurse, i know how important

it is to protect preexisting conditions. i also have a preexisting condition myself. this health care agenda, lowering prices, making sure we can expand coverage and include real mental health care reforms are things i want to immediately begin tackling. >> illinois congresswoman-elect lauren underwood. it's such a pleasure to have you here. it was joy to follow your campaign from across the country. and good luck to you. please keep us apprised. stay in touch. we'd love to see how this goes for you. >> thank you, rachel. all right. we'll be right back. stay with us.

if democrats wanted any chance of flipping congressional seats in a deep red state like kansas, they were going to need a fighter. they found one. this is sharice davids. she is a former mixed martial arts fighter. she is also a lawyer. she is going to law school at cornell. she would drive almost 90

minutes every day to train. on the way she would listen to her law school classes on tape. sharice davids is native. american. after she graduated from cornell, she went to live and work on reservations to help out underserved communities. she eventually found her way to the white house when she was chosen in 2016 for the highly selective white house fellowship program. she found that she liked working in politics. when she got back home to kansas, she started keeping an eye on her local congressman, a man named kevin yoder. congressman yoder has been a fixture in kansas republican politics. he served a red district and an even redder state, and he's never really had a challenge. across eight years and four elections he has glided to victory again and again, always by big double-digit margins. but sharice davids looked at the job he was doing for kansas, and she thought maybe she could do it better. ♪

>> this is a tough place to be a woman. i've been put down, pushed aside, knocked out. truth is i've had to fight my whole life because of who i am, who i love, and where i started. but i didn't let anything get in my way. still, it's 2018, and women, native americans, gay people, the unemployed and underemployed have to fight like hell just to survive. and it's clear trump and the republicans in washington don't give a damn about anyone like me or anyone that doesn't think like them. enough. that's why i'm running for congress. >> the single most reserved staffer on "the rachel maddow show," a person who is incapable of hyperbole, came to me after that ad was first posted and said i've never used the word epic to describe something in our news gathering process before, but i'd like you to look at this. i find it fairly epic.

fair enough. tuesday night sharice davids, the democratic fighter running for congress from kansas, she beat four-term republican congressman kevin yoder in kansas, and she didn't just beat him, she trounced him by more than nine points. sharice davids is only 37 years old. before now she had never run for public office. she now shares the honor of being the first native american woman elected to the house of representatives alongside newly elected deb holland from new mexico. sharice davids is also the first openly gay person to be elected from not just her kansas district, but from any district in congress. joining us now sharice davids congresswoman-elect from the great state of kansas. thank you very much for joining us tonight, and congratulations. >> thank you. thank you. i'm happy to be here. >> so i've been telling the story of your somewhat

remarkable victory. obviously you're a lot of firsts here. there had never been a native american woman elected to the house before tuesday night. the state of kansas has never elected an openly gay person to federal office. your district has been under republican control for like a decade. what made you decide to do this? and what made you think you could win? >> well, you know, i think that at the core of what helped me feel empowered to do this was that i knew my community could do so much more and have a much stronger voice in washington, d.c. than what we had with congressman yoder, and you know, starting off at johnson county community college right here in our community and making my way to cornell for law school, i mean so much of the opportunity i had in my life stemmed from the support i've had here and having a strong public education foundation and all of those things combined just led me to take the leap, because i knew that we could do so much better than what we had. >> you're a trail blazer, not only for winning, but for getting the nomination in the first place. you're a trail blazer even

within the democratic party. correct me if i'm wrong, but i think you had to beat out fife other democrats in this primary. >> yeah. >> what was that process like in terms of integrating yourself into the existing democratic party, figuring out how to best strategize against your fellow democrats? was there a unification effort after that hard fought primary? >> yeah, so there was a unification effort. we had a couple of unity rallies right after and wanted to make sure that even though, you know, our community had never seen a six-way primary before, that ultimately, our goal was to make sure that everyone came together for whoever it ended up being the nominee. and really, my approach was not necessarily one of competing with the other candidates, but rather trying to make sure that

our message of, one, making sure everybody has the same kind of opportunity that i know i had from this community, and two, making sure that people knew what we were fighting for. our campaign tried really, really hard to talk to as many people as possible about wanting to make sure that everybody had access to affordable quality health care, making sure that we sent somebody to washington, d.c. who really cared about public education, about campaign finance reform. and that was really the focus of what we were doing. >> obviously, coming from the district and having grown up there and knowing what it's like, i can tell from the way you're talking about it that you're focused on constituent services and what you want to be able to do for the district, what you think congressman yoder

wasn't able to do. but i think it's also obvious that you're going to have a big national spotlight on you because of how big a win this was, because you flipped this district, because of who you are, because of how you won. what are your goals for washington for your first term? you're going to get a lot of attention, and you're going to have probably your pick of the litter in terms of what you want to tackle first. >> well, certainly i want to be able to work on -- health care was the biggest issue that i heard from people about the entire time i was on the campaign trail, and so, down, that means that that has to be a big part of what i focus on. you know, the folks here in the third district are really concerned about making sure that we send somebody to washington, d.c. who is taking our voice and our values there, and that means being pragmatic. that means trying to figure out ways that we can build some kind of bipartisan change. so those are the kinds of things i want to focus on, and then as far as the attention, i think i'm just really happy to see that kansas is in the news for positive change-making because we're often unfortunately known for folks like sam brownback and kris kobach. i just have always wanted to make sure people knew that kansas is about people to know kansas is way more than that,

and this has been an amazing opportunity for people to see the positive things that kansas has to offer. >> sharice davids, as of now the most famous politician in the state of kansas. you're doing your part. good luck to you. stay in touch. >> thanks so much. have a good night. >> we'll be right back. have a good night. >> we'll be right back so (danny) let me get this straight.

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that basically does it for us tonight. but there's a lot more ahead tonight. including up next the "last word" holiday special in which i believe this guy makes a special appearance with lawrence. you will want to see that. in fact i dined of want to see that because i'm not totally sure what it is. but i want to thank you for joining us tonight and every night. it is an absolute honor and a privilege to have this show, to be on your tv, to be a part of your lives. and i'm not the only one who feels tat way. behind the scenes there are a ton of very good people working their butts off to get this show-off the ground every night, and they want to say thank you, too.

>> if it's the holidays, it's a special year-end edition of "mtp daily". good evening. i'm chuck todd. as we close the book on 2018 or at least try to we're gearing up for a spectacle unlike any other in modern history. it's the trump reelection fight. as the end of the year mess in congress has shown us, 2019 is going to be wild. why? because it's also going to be a whole lot about 2020, especially for this president.